transparency

Baynewser reports that Scott Rosenberg, one of the co-founders of salon.com, just won a $335,000 Knight Foundation grant to build a site called MediaBugs, which will serve as a digital forum for reporting reporter's mistakes.

The goals are interconnected: to provide more transparency in the news biz; and to make journalists more comfortable with mea culpas. The pilot project will start in the SF Bay Area later this year. Stay tuned.

From the post:

"All journalists make mistakes, but they sometimes view admitting errors as a mark of shame," says the project summary. "MediaBugs aims to change this climate, by promoting transparency and providing recognition for those who admit and fix their mistakes. MediaBugs will create a public test web site in a U.S. city for people to report errors in any news report—online or off-line. Comments will be tracked to see if they create a conversation between the reporter and the error submitter, and then show whether corrections or changes resulted."

"in the face of doubt, openness prevails"

A great day for America was followed by a great day for journalists:

Pro Publica reports that one of our new president's actions on his first day of work was to issue an order that essentially rolls back the restrictions on the Freedom of Information Act put in place by John Ashcroft, former attorney general under GWB, back in 2001.

From the president's directive (you can download the pdf from Pro Publica):

"A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.

"The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails. The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Nondisclosure should never be based on an effort to protect the personal interests of Government officials at the expense of those they are supposed to serve. In responding to requests under the FOIA, executive branch agencies (agencies) should act promptly and in a spirit of cooperation, recognizing that such agencies are servants of the public.

"All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.

"The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and done by their Government. Disclosure should be timely."